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Darkwing Duck (franchise)
Darkwing Duck is an American animated television series produced by The Walt Disney Company that ran from 1991-1995 and 1996-1997 on both the syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon and Saturday mornings on ABC. It ran for three seasons, which two of which aired in the same year. It featured an eponymous superhero anthropomorphic duck with the alter ego of mild-mannered single parent Drake Mallard. History Work on what would become Darkwing Duck began in 1989, about July-August. At the time, the people at Disney Television Animation were preparing a presentation to pitch The Secret Adventures of Bullwinkle, which was to be a revival of the The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show that had its original run from 1959 to 1964 and of which most of the staff was a fan. The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show is not a Disney product, but Gary Krisel, at the time President of Disney Television Animation, had understood from the legal team that Disney, which handled the video distribution of the original series, owned the full rights to the franchise. He had understood that wrongly, as Disney only owned the video rights of the original series.Bullwinkled at Ink and Paint Club: Memories of the House of Mouse by Michael Peraza The Darkwing Duck cartoon series is a spin-off of DuckTales which both have the character Launchpad McQuack as a pilot. Later, in the series Gizmoduck shows up as well. Darkwing Duck is about the adventures of the titular superhero, aided by his sidekick and pilot Launchpad. In his secret identity of Drake Mallard, he lives in an unassuming suburban house with his adopted daughter Gosalyn Mallard, next door to the bafflingly dim-witted Muddlefoot family. Darkwing struggles to balance his egotistical craving for fame and attention against his desire to be a good father to Gosalyn and help do good in St. Canard. Most episodes put these two aspects of Darkwing's character in direct conflict, though Darkwing's better nature usually prevails. Darkwing Duck entered production roughly one year after DuckTales ended. Darkwing Duck was inspired by two specific episodes of DuckTales, Double-O-Duck and The Masked Mallard. The original concept had Launchpad McQuack as the star. Instead, Launchpad appeared as Darkwing's sidekick in the finished product. Gizmoduck, a character from the final season of DuckTales, also appeared in a handful of crossover-themed episodes. The name "The Masked Mallard" became an epithet often used to refer to Darkwing himself. Where most prior Disney Afternoon series featured at least some characters from classic Disney animation, Darkwing Duck featured a completely original cast. Even the DuckTales characters it reused had no counterpart in early Disney shorts or even the Carl Barks Disney comics. It was also the first Disney Afternoon cartoon to emphasize action rather than adventure, with Darkwing routinely engaging in slapstick battles with both supervillains and street criminals. While conflict with villains was routine in earlier Disney Afternoon, actual fight scenes were relatively rare. Darkwing Duck was also the first Disney Afternoon property that was produced completely as a genre parody. Prior shows would contain elements of parody in certain episodes, but would otherwise be straight-faced adventure concepts in the tradition of Carl Barks's work in the Disney comics. By contrast, every episode of Darkwing Duck is laden with references to superhero, pulp adventure, or super-spy fiction. Darkwing Duck himself is a satirical character. His costume, gas gun, and flashy introductions are all reminiscent of pulp heroes such as Batman, James Bond, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Green Hornet, and most especially The Shadow. Fiction Cartoon The cartoon which launched the franchise had its run from 1991 to 1992 and is good for 91 episodes. Comics There are five "series" of Darkwing Duck comics in existence. The first two, a genuine comic book series and the collection of comics published in the Disney Adventures magazine, are products of Disney Comics. The comic book series was cut short and lasted only for a handful of months in 1991 and 1992, containing two adaptions of cartoon episodes spread over six parts. The Disney Adventures collection lasted from 1991 to 1996 and consists of 35 individual and original comic stories of varying lengths. In the same time period, Disney Comics also managed two comic collection magazines that republished material from Disney Adventures and the 10-20 different comic book series Disney Comics created (and dropped) over time. These are Disney's Colossal Comics Collection and Cartoon Tales. The earliest reprints of Darkwing Duck comics appeared in these two magazines from 1992 to 1993. From 1994 to 1995, Marvel Comics received the license to publish Disney Afternoon, a magazine comparable to Disney Adventures. Darkwing Duck was its main content and a total of 13 individual and original comic stories of varying lengths were written for and published in Disney Afternoon. None of them have ever been reprinted. Both the Disney Afternoon and Disney Adventures comics are stand-alone stories that operate within the cartoon continuity and could take place at any time during or after it. In 2010, Darkwing Duck was revived by Boom! Studios with at first a four-part comic story called The Duck Knight Returns that takes place one in-story year after the cartoon. This turned into a longer continuous series that due to management complications lasted only until 2011 and of which the final arc was published outside the license terms. The license was picked up by Joe Books in 2015 and they will continue the Boom! Studios run with a range of adjustments and disregarding the final arc. Books There are three companies that tried their hand at Darkwing Duck books, all of which illustrated and meant for a young audience. The first is Walt Disney Records, who manages the Disney Read-Along series of books accompanied by tapes to entertain and help children learn to read. In 1991, they released the one Darkwing Duck entry in their ongoing line-up, which is titled "High Wave Robbery". Under their Golden Books label, Western Publishing produced four Darkwing Duck books of which "Darkwing Duck and the Robot Plants" and "The Darkest Night" are original stories, "Clean Money" is an adaption of a cartoon episode, and "The Silly Canine Caper" an original story but possibly with roots in the cartoon production. The latter two, released in 1992, fit in one continuity with most of the 1990s material, but the first two, released in 1991, contain some oddities that suggest they are based on preliminary concepts. Lastly, Mallard Press published adaptions of four early episodes in September of 1992 under the same name as their respective episodes. They are "Beauty and the Beet", "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlatan", "Getting Antsy", and "That Sinking Feeling". Videogames In the early 1990s, Capcom was a prominent developer of games based on Disney franchises. In addition to being responsible to the still highly popular DuckTales game for the NES and Game Boy first available in 1989, the company also produced a Darkwing Duck game for the NES in 1992, which was ported to the Game Boy in 1993. The game takes clear cues from the Mega Man series and pits Darkwing against the forces of F.O.W.L., which in the game consists of several villains not associated with the organization in any other fiction, suggesting the game to have started development based on designs that didn't make it through development. Also in 1992, Interactive Designs and Radiance Software brought out Darkwing Duck for the TurboGrafx-16. The game is a platformer with some clever ideas and a good look, but also is notoriously unplayable with delayed control, unpredictable hit detection, and punishment for standing still for too long. The story's design is similar to Capcom's game, but with only half the bosses, although they play a role throughout their respective stage rather than wait around in the final room. Among the huge library of handheld games produced by Tiger Electronics is one of Darkwing Duck, which was released in 1992. As all of Tiger Electronics' games, it is a minimal game programmed within its own system. The player controls Darkwing as he fights an endless stream of bad guys. In 2010, coinciding with the Boom! Studios comics, Disney Mobile Studios released a [[Darkwing Duck (mobile)|mobile game of Darkwing Duck]]. It takes cues from the Capcom and Interactive Designs/Radiance Software games, both in structure and boss choices along with their animation. Merchandise References External links * The Tad Stones Interview at Animation World Network * INTERVIEW WITH TAD STONES – Darkwing Duck at Total Media Bridge * #100. A Conversation with Tad Stones * Disney's Darkwing Duck McDonald's Happy Meal by Dan Alexander Dizmentia Category:Franchises